An emergency meeting of Stapleford Parish Council took place tonight August 15) after travellers set up camp on the village’s recreation ground.

But the council is refused to let the News report who is said what.

They claimed the meeting was held under Chatham House Rules - an anonymity agreement that does not legally apply to public meetings such as those held by parish councils.

The meeting started at 7.45pm in Stapleford Pavilion, with council members discussing a review of the incident itself, the action taken and steps to prevent any further travellers accessing the recreation ground.

At least 70 members of the community turned up and discussed ways to prevent a large group of traveller caravans returning to the recreation ground.

The meeting has finished

Residents are urged to keep an eye on the Stapleford Parish Council website for dates of any future meetings. There must be at least 70 members of the public here. That’s the end of today’s meeting.

20:48

'We need to be very cautious about some of the official language'

Another resident said: “It’s clear that the playground and recreation ground needs to be kept available for those who use it, but the only thing that made me feel uncomfortable is the bit where you started saying ‘they [travellers] do this’ and ‘they [travellers] do that’.

“We need to be careful about that fine line between loving our community and loving them as well. We need to be very cautious about some of the official language.

“A notice was put up by the village sign advising people there were travellers on the recreation ground.”

20:45

Playground on recreation ground is still not open

Another resident said: “I’m glad the volunteers were thanked, because they deserve it.”

Residents with any ideas about how to prevent travellers coming back to the recreation ground are asked to email staplefordparishclerk@gmail.com.

It’s said at the meeting that the playground on the recreation ground is still not open. There are two quotes for work - one is for £1,800 to clean the whole of the playground and the building.

20:42

Parish council promises 'something permanent'

Another resident said there are sufficient travellers’ sites in South Cambridgeshire for all the travellers.

One resident said: “It’s brought it all home to us - and we need to address the issue. It didn’t cost £20,000 to plough the ridge on the recreation ground.”

It’s also stressed that Stapleford Parish Council are going to do ‘something permanent’ about the traveller situation.

One man said: “We need a cohesive and holistic approach to this because if we don’t we’re going to come unstuck.

“We need to ask police about the number of officers available to support us when we need them. A PCSO did a brilliant job on Saturday night.”

20:36

'Wake up call'

Members of the meeting are being asked to submit their ideas for how to keep away travellers via email to the parish clerk.

Another resident said: “Do nothing has to also be an option. I don’t think the travellers will come back.”

There’s a show of hands - and the members of the public agree that doing something to prevent travellers coming onto the recreation ground would be better than no action at all.

One resident said: “It’s made me think about the consequences of travellers coming in. They made such a mess, and the antisocial behaviour was bad as well.

“We need to do something, whatever we decide to do - because this has been a wake up call.”

20:33

Trench was dug to prevent travellers returning

Stapleford Parish Council are being commended for the way they handled the situation at the weekend.

At the meeting it is said that the decision to dig the trench round the recreation ground was made because the parish council ‘didn’t want to take the risk’ of the travellers coming back.

20:29

'We don't want to turn the recreation ground into a fortress'

One meeting member said: “We don’t want to turn to recreation ground into the fortress, but I don’t want to turn to a family and say to them, like I did today, ‘You can’t go on the recreation ground’ and the child started crying.”

Another member: “We need to make certain that caravaners can’t get their vans over the obstruction.” Another man said: “For those of you who saw the vehicles, they were powerful 4x4 vehicles with caravans.

“Unless we’re going to ringfence the recreation ground the travellers could come in, if they wanted to.

“What we should be doing is consulting with the whole village about what is best.”

20:27

The council's 'emergency plan' will take into account travellers from now on

Another resident said: “The police must know what is going on. If we can be in the loop with what’s going on, wouldn’t that help?”

One woman said: “We are so lucky that councillors were around to help us.”

It is said at the meeting that Stapleford Parish Council were caught out on Friday night - because the council’s ‘emergency plan’ didn’t take travellers on board.

It is said that the emergency plan will do this from now on.

Another resident now standing up to speak. He said: “The recreation ground is one of the more attractive parts of this village and we want to keep it like that.”

It is being questioned why S106 funding - this is money put forward by developers - can’t be used to pay for some of the work to keep travellers away.

20:25

The issue will be brought up with Cambridgeshire Police

There was a big hole in the police and the way they acted this weekend, says one member of the public. It is said that how the police handled the situation will be brought up with Cambridgeshire police itself.

20:25

'They did not need to be there'

Another member of the public said: “Most of the families on your recreation ground are property owners and landowners – they are out for the summer to pass down their heritage to their children.

“They are not short of staying anywhere - there’s plenty of places for them to go.

“The travellers that were on your recreation ground this weekend were there because they want to be there, not because they need to be there.”

20:24

'The travellers could come back tomorrow'

One public speaker said: “At the end of the day the travellers can come back tomorrow, there’s no court rule. When the travellers come and stay for a few days, they only come if they can stay for a while.”

20:22

Disinfecting the playground would cost up to £1,500

It is said in the meeting that it would cost £1,000 to £1,500 to clean and disinfect the playground. That includes the shed as well.

One member said: “We’ve ploughed across the grass to try and prevent them coming back. We made a conscious risk that the parish wanted to keep the recreation ground open.

“We’ve been hoist - so now we’ve got to do something. We put bags of gravel in because they were cheaper than concrete blocks. It would cost £1,000 to have four blocks delivered and put back afterwards.

“We put three one tonne bags in Cox’s Close because we thought they were a risk. Stapleford Parish Council owns this land.”

20:18

'The toilet was behind the junior playground'

An overview of what the parish council did to remove the travellers. We have been told we must not report who said this, or any other quotes from the meeting.

“We did what we felt was necessary, there were a lot of phone calls, a lot of presence.

“We were chuffed on Sunday afternoon - we noticed the travellers were gone before our meeting at 7pm.

“We decided what we had to do - the playgrounds. The break ins at the store. The worst was the animal and human problems.

“The toilet was behind the junior playground, behind the store or behind here.

“It’s because they couldn’t get access to the water because they parked the caravan on top of the only main access to water in the recreation ground.

“It’s the total antisocial behaviour that’s a difficult thing.

“It’s massively difficult to have respect each way when they defile our surroundings in this way.

“I want to talk about how we actually look after our communities. The council is very grateful to many residents who gave us the support we needed to remove the travellers.”

20:15

The meeting opened at 7.45pm

The meeting is now being opened. There’s at least 80 residents here. It’s being that when the travellers arrived, they were polite. The parish council are being thanked for the swift action in getting the travellers off the site. There’s a round of applause.